September 21, 2009 -- One of the routines Johnny Carson used when he ran the Tonight Show all of those years was Carnac the Magnificent. With the help of Ed McMahon, who handed him sealed envelopes that had been securely kept in a mayonnaise jar, Carnac the Magnificent would divine the answer before tearing open the envelope and revealing the question. Not much cataclysmic has happened this week, with the exception of Glenn Beck’s appearance on the cover of Time Magazine, so let’s go to the mayonnaise jar icon on the desktop and dig out some bits and pieces of information, some new, some old leftovers and see what can be divined.
A “carnivorous B.L.T. gastrotail”
What do you call a drink made with bacon infused vodka (“Baconcello”), a huge ice cube made with lettuce water, in a glass filled with clear tomato water and rimmed with bacon salt?
Schott’s Vocab, in The New York Times, claims such meat-in-a-glass cocktails are turning up in bars in Chicago and New York. These drinks sound like they have more meat in them than the average spiel of a cable TV talker.
1 to 42,360 .. 360,000 up against 42,000,000
What is the ration of our troops in Afghanistan to the numbers of the Pashtun tribes that make up most of the Taliban movement?
The military is saying we need more troops. Many Democrats, and conservative columnist George Will (an odd pairing if there ever was one), want the U.S. to declare victory and bail out now. To stay with or without more troops means more U.S. casualties and more budget-busting expense; to pull out leaves hoards of Afghans to the mercy of the inhumane Taliban movement, particularly females who once again would not be able to go to school, enter the work force or be first class citizens. The Obama Administration is holding the worse hand on this in the history of Texas Hold’em.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
What best describes Sarah Palin (no identification needed), Karl Rove (also hardly needed, but once senior advisor to George Bush, if you remember him), William Kristol (vitriolic editor of the Weekly Standard), Ryan C. Crocker (one time ambassador to Iraq), and other conservatives who signed a letter to President Obama praising him for his management of Afghanistan and urging him to commit more troops?
He was inspired, perhaps by the U.S. 2000 and 2004 elections
How did it happen that many of the votes cast for President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan should be examined for fraud?
The one that’s always been like a ray of sunshine, Germany
What country did NYT columnist Thomas Friedman report as generating almost half of the solar power in the world, while creating 50,000 new jobs?
Solar panels were invented here in Silicon Valley, but the inventors maintain six manufacturing plants in other countries, not the U.S. because unlike German, where the government did everything to encourage investment, we have not, so people are unwilling to put their money down without assurance they will get a return. We’ve all seen T. Boone Pickens on TV pitching his wind power. About the only thing he hasn’t done yet is wear a propeller beanie.
A tax, if they haven’t forgotten how to levy one
What does Congress propose to come up with to fight obesity by reducing the consumption of sugary soft drinks while collecting revenue to help pay for health care reform?
Mary Travers ashes are now blowing in the wind
Whatever became of folk singer Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary?
She passed away this week leaving behind a legacy of bringing folk music into the main stream, activism for noble causes, and a catalogue of songs sung like “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” that those of us there in the sixties will not soon forget.
Like I was back in the thirties listening to Amos and Andy on the radio
How did you feel this week listening to all of the discussions about to what degree the anti-Obama movement is due to racism?
Now why would anyone think that? Just because the main man behind the tea party movement, Mark Williams, calls the president of the United States an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug, and a racist in chief. Just because in the 1970s Rush Limbaugh told a black caller: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” Just because the assembly of what Norm Stamford in the Huffington Post called teabaggers, birthers, and assorted other raging town-hallers carried such signs as one with a picture of a lion, captioned “The Zoo has an African and the White House has a Lyin’ African;” and “We came unarmed (this time)” and “‘Cap’ Congress and ‘Trade’ Obama back to Kenya!” Joe Wilson, of “You Lie” fame, as a state senator in South Carolina fought to keep the Confederate flag flying over the state capital. Racism? Bah, humbug.
But the official word from the White House is to disagree. All they need is a big national argument over race right now to divert attention from desired legislation, preferring to say, “The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. It is better to take the position criticism is due to a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president. O.K. (wink, wink) we’ll go along with that.
It pays to be an ignorant boor.
How do you account that a guy like Glenn Beck can make what Forbes Magazine calculates is $23 million a year?
Let’s give Beck credit for one thing. He has determined that the Rockefeller family installed communist and fascist symbols in the public art work of Rockefeller Center. You just couldn’t trust those Rockefeller pinkos.
If you thought it was some bleeding heart liberal, think again: Daily Kos says it was Bill O’Reilly some time back.
Who said “I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have an option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.”
Would you believe Chicken Feet, a much desired delicacy.
What U.S. commodity do the Chinese lust for and import in great quantities that they might use to counter the tariff we slapped on automotive tires they export to us?
No, he still has a couple of hundred more channels to go.
Do you think with appearing today on "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," "State of the Union", and an Univision show, with a booking on Letterman Monday night that the President has covered all of the bases?
No, the sole role of Wall Street is to give traders taking risks with other people’s money the opportunity to give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses.
When noting that nearly 100 banks have failed so far this year compared with 25 in 2008 and just three in 2007 – is Washington Post columnist Eugene Robison right to complain that, “Wall Street's theoretical role is to allocate capital most efficiently to the companies that can make the best use of it” - but isn’t doing its job?
“I don’t remember anymore. I was in the moment.”
What could John Edwards, said to be about to own up to being the father of his ex lover's child, have taken from Serena Williams’ post match interview last week when he was questioned about his extra marital affair?
You can not milk the word ‘cow’; a map is not a territor
What did semanticist Alfred Korzybski say seventy year ago to illustrate that a symbol is not the thing itself?
As I remember, Korzybski wrote about the importance of words, how they affected our actions, how they influence the way we think. For example, I believe the Bush Administration made a big mistake in calling our actions against terrorists a “war on terror” instead of something like a police action against international vicious criminals by military peace keepers. Using the word “War” raised the status of the “evil doers” as then President Bush rightly called them, gave them legitimacy, made it easier to recruit as a call to arms to join a war as soldiers rather than common thugs.
In hindsight, the Obama Administration would have done better not to push for “health care reform” but for “health insurance reform” instead, as they are now beginning to refer to it, accurately. Most people are leery about reforming “care,” but just about everybody except those in the industry would go for “insurance” reform.
In the last movie about the life of Cole Porter, his wife complained to him about having to pay blackmail to buy photos of his homosexual activities, which in those days would have ruined his career. He replied “I don’t think of it as blackmail, I think of it as a sin tax.”
In a Huffington Post, writer Lorelei Kelly called for a new, more palatable word to replace the word “escalation” in reference to sending more troops to Afghanistan. That is a tough assignment. I can only suggest “enhanced deployment.” Something like “Military Footwear Expansion” to hitchhike on the phrase “more boots on the ground” is too clumsy.
A couple of weeks ago Rick Casey, a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, grappled with a semantics problem: the language to use when writing about what is called a “gentlemen’s club” in covering a case in court. All things considered the word “gentlemen” seemed inappropriate, and had implications similar to the use of the word “lady.” He brought up the guidelines found in the Associated Press style book: “lady” must be used only “as a courtesy title or when a specific reference to fine manners is appropriate without patronizing overtones.”
To come up with a new name for such places, I gave it a shot, as in Lust Lounge … Booty Bar … Porno Pub … Peeping Tom’s Place …Voyeur VIP Room, but none of them would really fly. The Casey solution was right on, combining the kind of fellows who frequented the place as well as why they go there: he called them “Boob Bars.” Wish I had said that.
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